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Significant research has delved into the methodologies and practices teachers use to foster interculturality in the high school and college foreign language curriculum. Yet, little is known about the intercultural teaching practices teachers use in non-elite communities where inequity, lack of access, and inclusion have prevailed, especially during COVID-19. This case study describes how three teachers in three Colombian state schools, where economic divides are notorious, teach for interculturality in distance and virtual learning educational environments during the outbreak of COVID-19. Findings indicate that teachers' approach to interculturality could be categorized into four intercultural teaching practices: 1) moving from the known to the unknown, 2) going beyond factual information, 3) challenging existing sources, and 4) contextualizing through authenticity. These practices offer guidance and instructional moves about how to teach for interculturality locally and worldwide.

Recent evidence suggests that not many studies on technology-supported cross-cultural learning considered creating authentic, immersive learning environments and addressing the language barrier in communication among representatives of different cultures which are very critical matters in the field. The present study attempted to address this gap. To this end, we designed the cross-cultural learning activity supported by 360-degree video technology and artificial intelligence-based translation tool. Eleven students from China and thirteen students from Russia participated in the activity. They used 360-degree video technology to create virtual reality (VR) cultural content which enabled authentic, immersive cross-cultural learning experiences. They also used AI-based translation technology to bridge the language barrier when communicating and exchanging culture-related information with each other in their native language. With such learning activity, we aimed to facilitate cross-cultural knowledge and attitudes of the participants. We used the convergent mixed methods design, i.e. both qualitative and quantitative data were collected, related and interpreted in response to the research questions. Personal meaning maps (PMMs) were used to measure knowledge of the students in three aspects (i.e. categories of cross-cultural knowledge, number of related and unrelated concepts, and emerged concepts) before and after the activity. We compared PMM outcomes obtained before the learning activity with those obtained after the activity using a statistical method in order to explore cross-cultural knowledge development. In addition, development in cross-cultural knowledge of the students after participating in the learning activity was explored based on the qualitative data. That is, content of 360-degree videos was analyzed and such qualitative findings were used to support the results of the statistical test. Next, cross-cultural attitudes development was explored in four aspects (i.e. interest, curiosity, openness, and respect) using interviews. Finally, participants' perceptions of the technological support were also researched. The results showed that the cross-cultural learning activity supported by technologies were beneficial for knowledge and attitudes development. More specifically, the activity helped the students acquire cross-cultural knowledge in eight categories. The number of related concepts significantly increased whereas the number of unrelated concepts significantly decreased because of the activity. The students were able to identify, compare and contrast cultural differences, and they maintained an open and respectful attitude toward the culture of their partners after the study; they lacked such knowledge and abilities prior to the study. Finally, the participants positively perceived the technological support. Based on the results, it is suggested that educators and researchers employ 360-degree video and translation technologies in their design of learning activities when focusing on cross-cultural knowledge and attitudes development. Such approach was found to be beneficial to facilitate learning outcomes as authentic and immersive cross-cultural learning environments were created and the language barrier was addressed. The study makes the following contributions: (1) we designed the learning activity supported by 360-degree video and translation technologies to create authentic and immersive cross-cultural learning environments in which the language barrier was addressed, (2) we tested the feasibility of the learning activity supported by technology to facilitate cross-cultural knowledge and attitudes of the participants, and (3) we explored the accuracy rate of translation technology and perceptions of students regarding the learning activity supported by technology. The authenticity of the present study lies in the creation of the technology-supported cross-cultural learning environment in which the students had authentic and immersive learning experiences and were able to communicate with each other without any language barriers.

Integration is vital to student well-being in higher education but integrating new students from different countries can be challenging. To ascertain students' integration into their new environment, this mixed method study combined the data collected from weekly diary entries of home and international students at the start of one engineering program, with follow-up interviews. These students studied primarily online due to the pandemic. The diary entries focused on their adjustment to the program from an academic, social and pair work perspective. Results show that the students reacted slightly negatively to the academic experience but very positively to their pair work. It seems that the teacher-formed pair work helped to bridge the academic and social gap and not only alleviate some of the stress caused by assignments, but in some cases, provided new social contacts. The article concludes that structural factors within the course can facilitate interaction and thus support integration.

China has actively internationalized its doctoral education by funding students to study abroad via the China Scholarship Council. Nevertheless, little is known about the scholarship recipients' perceptions of their study sojourn, especially those on short-term exchange programs. Based on 100 visiting doctoral students' study reports, the study employed a sentiment analysis and was guided by the ecological system theory to untangle how this cohort affectively evaluated academic and non-academic dimensions of the study sojourn as a multi-layered ecological system. Via a computer-based SKEP analysis, the study contributes new objective insights regarding the perceived nature of an overseas sojourn, which is predominantly positive. In particular, it reveals positive perceptions regarding the funder and institutional prestige, indicating that the recipients' increasing national pride may be harnessed as a soft pulling force for nation-building. This paper ends by offering implications that may potentially benefit doctoral education in China and other countries.

Business education must evolve. Traditionally, it has been narrowly focused, siloed, and often reflective of the transactional nature of business through the lens of maximizing shareholder wealth. The triumph of market fundamentalism over the last five decades has coincided with increasing social inequality, the concentration of corporate power, and a weakening of many forms of social solidarity. There are calls for higher education institutions to reaffirm their commitment to their public purposes and the common good and to leverage their economic resources as anchor institutions. Schools of business have enormous potential to contribute to these efforts by integrating into the curriculum a broader and deeper focus on university-community collaboration, civic engagement, and solidarity with community partners to address social and economic inequities. This review of a partnership between an MBA program and a community center's microenterprise program highlights the key role that community engagement can play in graduate business education. The study includes a conceptual model incorporating four overlapping areas: critical reflection, relational paradigms, intersectionality, multilingual communication, and intercultural praxis. Structural barriers and challenges are discussed in the study, but also opportunities for building upon program strengths and a flexible framework for implementation at other institutions. [Note: The issue number (4) shown in the citation on the PDF is incorrect. The correct issue number is 3.]

The goal of the current study was to ascertain pre-service English language teachers' impressions of the impact of thematic speaking tasks on the development of their intercultural competence in an online Spoken English course. Moreover, the effect of certain demographic variables on pre-service teachers' cultural intelligence (CQ) was also investigated. The findings revealed a significant difference between the CQ of students with and without overseas experience. Pre-service teachers who could speak languages other than their mother tongue and English had significantly higher CQ scores than students who could not speak other languages. However, there was not a significant difference between males' and females' overall CQ. The results showed an increase in CQ scores when the pre- and post-questionnaire averages were compared, but it was not statistically significant. Semi-structured interviews revealed speaking tasks were effective in exposing pre-service teachers to various cultural perspectives, practices, and products.

The importance of internationalization and effective online collaborative learning is well established, and the recognized value of cross-cultural exchanges by higher education institutions has resulted in a diverse range of initiatives including the use of virtual exchanges. Virtual exchanges are global online learning experiences for students enrolled in postsecondary coursework. The purpose of this study was to examine a virtual exchange learning opportunity for U.S. and Irish graduate education students. Using an online collaborative learning theoretical lens, this case study found that while there were varying levels of commitment and unequal expectations and contributions of the graduate students, students described the importance and significance of the unique learning experience. Implications for research and practice are discussed for future use of virtual exchange within the postsecondary environment.

Intercultural Perspectives on Information Literacy and Metaliteracy (IPILM) is a discourseoriented learning environment that engages students from diverse cultural backgrounds to participate in collaborative knowledge construction. The objective is to evolve a thematic approach to course design that includes elements of open pedagogy, information literacy, and metaliteracy. IPILM invites participation from educators and learners from around the world and has witnessed an increase in participating countries. This paper describes the concept of IPILM and demonstrates the implementation of this approach in practice. The initiative was well received by students and is both feasible and sustainable as an intercultural learning endeavor. IPILM is an ongoing project and a work in progress that is an adaptable model which may be transferred to disparate fields of teaching and learning or adopted by international communities of instructors.

Developing intercultural communicative competence has become an inevitable need within 21st-century demands, mobilizing global efforts to promote unity through diversity. However, within the Colombian context and supported by an economic interest in bilingualism, most English language teaching programs still advocate educational practices that reaffirm cultural homogenization and legitimation. This presupposes a challenge for pre-service language teachers, who may not be interculturally prepared to overcome their ethnocentrism, and yet have to face a language classroom. The study explored the intercultural sensitivity level of a group of 50 pre-service English language teachers from a Colombian private university, its influencing factors, and explained its relationship with the representation of the Other. A twostage explanatory sequential mixed-method design was employed, involving, in the first stage, quantitative data from a self-awareness intercultural sensitivity questionnaire and in the second stage, qualitative data from semi-structured interviews and two in-class observations. Findings indicated that the participants demonstrated ethnocentric intercultural sensitivity arising from a traditionalist culture teaching approach, misleading artificial means to culture learning, and limited overseas cultural experience, which led them to perpetuate Cultural Othering, a social representation materialized through mechanisms of overgeneralization, cultural pride, and cultural underestimation. The conclusions and implications are further discussed.

The idea of translanguaging has disrupted much of the thinking in bilingual education. A common misunderstanding, however, is that translanguaging was intended to be a language teaching strategy. This article seeks to explore what a translanguaging approach to language teaching entails, with specific reference to the education of minoritized and racialized bilingual and multilingual learners in the school systems in English-dominant countries such as the UK. In particular, I highlight the connections with and contributions to the inclusion and social justice agenda that the translanguaging project aims to make. Translanguaging takes one step further from multilingualism in challenging the raciolinguistic ideologies that view bilingual learners as having separate languages and languaging lives. It instead views their racial/ethnic identities and linguistic practices together, that is, their translanguaging being. My main argument here is that to use translanguaging as a pedagogy for inclusion and social justice requires a change of mindset, not just practice -- that is, translanguaging pedagogy rather than pedagogical translanguaging -- which can be achieved through processes of 'co-learning' and 'transpositioning'.

Intercultural Communicative Competence (ICC) plays a significant role in learning a foreign language. Therefore, it is important to measure the ICC level of language learners before taking actions to improve the educational process. The present study aimed at developing an ICC Scale to measure the perceived ICC level of Academic English students studying in the Foreign Language Division of an international university. The participants of the study consisted of 325 first year students in their second semester in the 2021 to 2022 academic year enrolled in 48 English-medium instructed (EMI) departments. In order to produce a reliable and valid ICC Scale, statistical data were analyzed through software programs. Further, the Exploratory Factor Analysis generated an 18-item Intercultural Communicative Competence (ICC) Scale with four factors, namely "knowledge," "awareness," "attitude," and "skills." Additionally, the Confirmatory Factor Analysis results confirmed and validated the four factors. Consequently, the ICC Scale was found to be highly reliable in measuring the perceived ICC level of students and had a high internal consistency. The newly designed ICC Scale proves to be a useful instrument for measuring the perceived ICC level of language learners.

To examine the interaction between educators' intercultural development and students' intercultural growth, we studied the impact of CIEE's Intercultural Communication and Leadership (ICL) course. Our results indicate that Educator, Country, Gender, and Field had impacts on students' intercultural gains (Gibson et al., 2023); the focus of this article is solely on educators' perceptions of the factors that shape their ability to foster student intercultural learning. Using the AAC&U's (2009) Intercultural Knowledge and Competence VALUE Rubric to frame the 22 educator interview responses, our study indicates the tangible results of formally and informally supported educators' intercultural professional development. As a result of educators' intentional intercultural development, they leverage skilled pedagogical techniques to effectively bridge with students to enhance their intercultural learning. Therefore, we argue for the investment, expansion, and mentorship of faculty development, particularly with regards to educator's own intercultural growth, in order to activate and expand students' learning while studying abroad.

This longitudinal mixed-methods case study aimed to explain why a seemingly ordinary U.S.-affiliated hyper-connected French language learner (Nancy) achieved extraordinary outcomes after 15 weeks in Paris, compared to fifteen Generation Z peers also enrolled in the program. Framed by Complex Dynamic Systems Theory and social pedagogies, the study adopted a retrodictive approach to "explain after by before" and retrace Nancy's complex, non-linear trajectories of success. Adapting to new realities of students going abroad with their smartphones in hand, multiple measures of success (linguistic, intercultural, social, psychological, emotional) were triangulated with reports on smartphone usage, rich interviews, and background data to provide dense time-series and narrative illustrations of changes. Findings revealed the importance of the activation of Nancy's agency to take advantage of the affordances of her study abroad environment through the butterfly effect arising from her initial conditions, judicious smartphone usage, and quality of L1 and L2 interactions.

The purpose of this focused qualitative study was to examine two urban high school students' perceptions of a study-abroad experience, five years after the fact, with the intention of assessing long-term effects on increased global competency and awareness. The interviewees, selected from 11 participants, brought an already rich intercultural perspective and as such, their experiences illuminated the profound benefits of short-term study abroad experiences. Interviews were designed to elicit whether the principle of global competency could be discerned along two basic criteria, acquisition of cultural knowledge, and capacity/desire for close observation and self-reflection. Viewed through the theories of experiential learning, this paper will explore related pedagogical themes as well as point to the cognitive issues at stake in a longitudinal approach to qualitative research.

Scholars suggest that study abroad programs must intentionally design and implement intercultural intervention for students' growth. This study used a mixed-method approach to examine the effectiveness of an online curriculum designed to facilitate the intercultural competence development of semester abroad students. Three theories informed the curricular design and study: the Intercultural Development Continuum, the Intercultural Praxis Model, and the Intercultural Knowledge and Competence VALUE rubric. Using the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI) distributed before and after the study abroad experience, the study analyzed data sets for a treatment group with 110 students and a control group with 88 students. The results demonstrated that students in the treatment group achieved a statistically significant higher level of meaningful gains in their IDI scores from pre- to post-test compared to the control group. In addition, students described their growth in specific competencies. These findings contribute to study abroad literature by assessing a theoretically grounded online curriculum rooted in intercultural theories so as to suggest best practices in group mentoring, stage-based pedagogy, and critical reflection for intercultural competence development during a study abroad program.

The globalization of business, education, and other sectors has illuminated the need for institutions of higher education to prepare students to adapt, interact, and perform in culturally diverse environments (Arnett, 2002; Brislin & Yoshida, 1994; Elmuti et al., 2005; Williams et al., 2017). Utilizing the conceptual framework of Deardorff's (2006) Intercultural Competence Model (ICM), this qualitative case study explored undergraduate students' development of intercultural competence (IC) resulting from their participation in two different short-term study abroad programs (STSA) while enrolled at a specific U.S.-based university. Nine themes emerged that supported and enriched Deardorff's ICM. Findings provided a more holistic comprehension of IC by capturing students' own words, oral stories, descriptions, and feelings about their shared STSA experiences. Findings further identified students' perceptions of the role that varied pedagogy played in their development of IC through STSA.

This white paper is a conceptual summary of a think tank discussion sponsored by The Forum on Education Abroad. Following the traditional use of "white paper" as a call to action in specific contexts, this paper defines the contexts of programming for education abroad and for domestic diversity education and argues for an incorporation of their differing perspectives into the general category of intercultural learning. The result of the application would be that intercultural learning in education abroad would continue to expand its current emphasis on the developmental experience of contemporary global cultures to include more transformational experience of historical and political context, while domestic diversity education would expand its current focus on transformational experience of historically situated power inequities to include more developmental experience of contemporary domestic multicultural relations. Several illustrations of practical application of the ideas follow the call to action.

Despite the rising awareness that mobile technologies can be used as viable options for additional support for intercultural learning, few studies have been conducted to explore the feasibility of using mobile apps to develop intercultural competence (IC) from the perspectives of learners' acceptance and user experiences. This study applied a mixed-method approach to investigate factors affecting university students' acceptance of using mobile apps to develop their IC. Quantitative survey data were collected from 671 Chinese university students using measures developed based on the extended technology acceptance model. The results of structural equation modeling indicated that students' perceived usefulness (PU) of mobile apps supporting IC development positively influenced their mobile application efficacy, subjective norms, and perceived enjoyment. Additionally, their perceived ease of use (PEU) concerning the apps was positively associated with their mobile application efficacy, perceived enjoyment, and previous experiences, while being negatively associated with mobile application anxiety. PU and PEU were also found to be positively related to students' attitudes towards and behavioral intention to use apps for intercultural learning. Qualitative interviews were subsequently conducted with six students to investigate the underlying reasons for the predictors identified quantitatively following their actual use of three recommended apps over three consecutive weeks. The results of content analysis uncovered a range of categories that provided further insights into the statistical findings. Implications of the findings were discussed in the context of technology-enhancing intercultural education.

This study explores the impacts of an online collaborative learning program on students' intercultural communication apprehension (ICA) and intercultural communicative competence (ICC). The participants were 150 voluntary students (73 Vietnamese and 77 Taiwanese students). The students were assigned into two groups. The Control Group consisted of one class of 36 Taiwanese (taught by a Taiwanese teacher) and one class of 38 Vietnamese students (taught by a Vietnamese teacher) based in their home countries. The Experimental Group (37 Vietnamese and 39 Taiwanese students) consisted of two classes of 38 students. Each experimental class had both Vietnamese and Taiwanese students, co-taught by a Vietnamese teacher and a Taiwanese teacher and were assigned into bicultural pairs for unguided online collaborative learning. A pretest and posttest of ICA and ICC were used to measure the effects of the 10-week intervention on the students' ICA and ICC. Results showed that online collaborative learning significantly reduced the students' ICA and improved their ICC. The Vietnamese students were more receptive to online collaborative learning to enhance their ICC while the Taiwanese students' ICC developed more significantly than Vietnamese students in face-to-face learning. Teachers may apply online collaborative learning to teaching students from different cultures to enhance their ICC and reduce ICA.

Despite a clarion call to cultivate EFL teachers' intercultural competence (IC) in supporting their classroom practice, there is a lack of empirical research on how pre-service EFL teachers develop their IC. To fill the gap, the study examined two pre-service EFL teachers' IC development during a service-learning programme in China. Drawing on data from interviews, reflective journals, and researchers' field notes, the findings revealed two IC development patterns derived from the Chinese notion of harmony, i.e., "prioritising harmony" and "seeking harmony in diversity," shaped by the participants' motivations, personality traits, and contextual influences. Implications are provided to facilitate pre-service teachers' IC development in culturally diverse contexts.

There is a tendency in language courses to use textbooks which focus mainly on anglophone cultures. As a consequence, learners are more exposed to foreign cultures rather than to their own, and they have a few chances to explore and reflect on their own culture. It was evident in a syllabus for an A1 course in a Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) degree at a university in Bogotá. This article shows how problem-based activities were used to promote local cultural awareness. This action research study implemented focus groups, questionnaires, students' artifacts, and teacher's interviews. The results show that problem-based activities contribute to students' concept of culture, the development of thinking and cognitive skills, and the ability to apply problem-solving skills in local cultural contexts. It can be concluded that problem-solving activities encourage students to analyze and reflect on cultural aspects, develop skills for solving problems and improve their communicative competence.

This study involved qualitative research in the form of a case study to examine the intercultural sensitivity of Turkish language teachers. In the study, criterion sampling was selected and an interview form consisting of seven open-ended questions was applied to 20 Turkish language teachers. Participants working in secondary schools, which are basic education institutions affiliated to the Ministry of National Education, and in units related to assignment in different provinces of Turkey. The research questions were prepared by considering the five following dimensions of the Intercultural Sensitivity Scale developed by Chen and Starosta (2000): interaction engagement, respect for cultural differences, interaction self- confidence, interaction enjoyment, and interaction attentiveness. Content analysis, a qualitative data analysis method, was used. As a result of the study, it was seen that most of the participants exhibited a generally appropriate attitude in terms of having intercultural sensitivity. Some of these participants who exhibited an appropriate attitude had deficiencies in terms of some dimensions of intercultural sensitivity. On the other hand, a significant portion of the participants did not exhibit an appropriate attitude in terms of having intercultural sensitivity in general. At the rest of the paper, some suggestions are made in order to improve teachers' intercultural sensitivity and to overcome their deficiencies.

Implementing an equity agenda in the classroom is both necessary and challenging for classes containing pre-service teachers. For this intervention, we chose to begin our History of Mathematics course for preservice middle school teachers with a cultural simulation training exercise: Bafa Bafa. After participating in the exercise, pre-service teachers were asked to write a reflection paper and were later interviewed about their experiences in the course. Although participants found Bafa Bafa an uncomfortable experience, it was not an unsafe one, and the preservice teachers agreed that this exercise helped them better understand, articulate, and notice experiences with microaggressions.

As a public compulsory course for Non-English majors in colleges and universities, College Public English should not only develop students' language and cross-cultural communication skills, but also cultivate their correct outlook on life, values, world and native land emotion, which is consistent with the ideological-political goals of the course. English textbook is the guarantee for the smooth progress of English teaching, and more importantly, it is an important carrier to practice Chinese teaching ideas. This paper mainly focuses on how to integrate ideological-political elements into English teaching from textbook perspective. It discusses the measures of integrating ideological-political education into College English courses from four aspects: teaching objectives, unit themes, and knowledge points, grammatical structure and word explanation. It is finally pointed out that exploring and integrating ideological-political elements in textbooks is the key link to realize ideological-political education in College Public English courses.

This study used a qualitative research methodology to classify and examine the large amount of information which was collected through field research. The research objective was to (1) An investigation of Hua'er song development in Gansu and Ningxia, China; and (2) Examine the characteristics of Hua'er song in Gansu and Ningxia, China. The research designed the interview and observation forms related to the interviews and observations. The interviews were divided into 3 groups: expert informant, inheritance, and the masses. The study's findings are as follows: (1) Gansu Hezheng and Ningxia Haiyuan are both ethnic minority enclaves containing more than fifty percent of the Hui ethnicity. All faith is isism. Share similar ethnic taboos. Due to the geographical and cultural differences between the two places, the transmission of Hua'er song has changed; and (2) The Hui nationality performs a crucial, irreplaceable function in the process of Hua'er's spread, which cannot be played by any other ethnicity. Directly linked with the material interactions and activities of humanity. Not only does the Hui spirit penetrate the transmission process of Hua'er song, but it also permeates the literature of Hua'er song.

To understand how ISL addresses linguistic difference between participants and host communities, a qualitative content analysis of recent peerreviewed articles in which programs were described as having addressed linguistic difference. Nearly half of the literature did not explicate how language was addressed. Across 25 programs, seven methods were identified. Programs most commonly involved participant language lessons and utilizing participants' extant second language skills. ISL programs were found to value participants' second language skills more than found in previous reviews, contradicting a pattern of general indifference. This review advocates providing participants language lessons and critical linguistic awareness, moving towards a plurilingual reciprocity. Constituting an initial step, this review urges further exploration of cross-linguistic communication and greater critical reflexivity on the topic of linguistic difference in ISL programs.

This study examined the perceptions of foreign language teachers in Turkey regarding their role as conveyers of culture in foreign language teaching. To that end, I utilised a descriptive model, one of the quantitative research designs, in the research. The study group consisted of 441 English teachers working in the English preparatory programs of various universities in Turkey in 2020-2021 academic year. The survey focused on teachers' perceptions of their purposes in foreign language teaching, their views on culture teaching in the context of foreign language teaching, their cultural teaching practices, their familiarity with the country, culture, and individuals in which the language they teach, the time they allocate to culture and language teaching in their practices, and their views on the cultural content of the materials they use. The answers of the participants are summarized as arithmetic mean and standard deviation, frequency and percentage. I used one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) so as to determine whether the data on the participants differed significantly according to the variables and preferred Tukey, one of the post- hoc multiple comparison technique, to verify the source of the significant difference as a result of the ANOVA analysis. The results of the study showed that the teachers are aware of the importance of integrating the target culture in foreign language teaching. The majority of the participants pay attention to conveying the culture of the target language within the framework of the curriculum and materials they use. However, it was concluded that foreign language teachers in Turkey needed support programs and travels in order to increase their level of familiarity with the culture of the language they teach.

In this article, the internationalised campus is understood as a higher education institution, a stage and a platform, with its own cultural and legal practices and processes, on which and in which social and multiple cultural interactions are performed. Sensitive to Braidotti's concept of nomadic subjects, we -- three postgraduate students from the South West Asia and North Africa (SWANA) region -- describe an intercultural encounter with each other and with a higher education institution in which we create a sense of belonging. As the three co-founders of SWANA Forum for Social Justice, we describe our experience of community building at the UCL Institute of Education, London, UK. Using our preferred conceptual framework, and reflecting on our personal narratives bearing on the question of belonging and home-making, we offer a metatheoretical conversation that draws on Bourdieu's notion of field, habitus and capital when describing what happens during community-building practices in internationalised university campuses; an engagement with social justice in education through concepts such as recognition, safety, belonging and success; and a pragmatist philosophical conceptualisation of community as a democratic public, and its potential for action and change.

This article presents critical intercultural dialogue as a necessary curricular, pedagogical, and decolonial practice to engage and value Indigenous students' cultural semiotic resources in higher education. Drawing from social semiotics, critical interculturality, and decolonial theory, the article analyzes Indigenous students' structural barriers to accessing and completing their undergraduate programs. Using examples from pedagogy courses taught in English and reflections and learnings from a research project with Indigenous students, the article underscores and extends lessons to mobilize Indigenous students' learning paths, sociocultural practices, and languages, showcasing intercultural dialogue within a public university. Reflections on the tensions, constraints, and possibilities to facilitate university stakeholders' engagement at multiple levels are discussed.

This paper revisits two teacher-education contexts which we independently researched. Both contexts invested in teacher-professional transformation, presenting unique puzzles in our respective data analyses. Bringing together Bakhtinian dialogic theory and Natural Inclusionality (Rayner, 2017), we return to these puzzles in a reflective dialogue. The paper unpacks two emergent themes. The first theme details our sense-making of the dialogic-dialectic-dialogic flow as part of professional development, and the second theme captures our deliberations about the energy-filled spaces of the in-between that form part of teacher development in our contexts. The paper discusses key insights about the nature of teacher-professional transformation and opportunities for mutual enrichment: insights that would not be available to us in our independent analyses. Given the non-conclusive nature of Bakhtinian dialogue, we offer no closure and avoid definitive conclusions that enforce or imply the assimilation and homogeneity of perspectives. Instead, we bring a polyphony of voices -- our philosophies, contexts, professional orientations, and empirical puzzles -- into a receptive-responsive relationship. We believe that the emerging dialogic problematisation has significant implications for teacher development as well as for ongoing theorisations of education. It responds to the pressing need to rethink the crucial relationship between educational theory and practice.

Local tour guides' English speaking competence determines inbound international tourists' travel experiences. This study investigated student tour guides' English learning by adopting role-play tasks. The communicative tasks were designed to explore how real interactions prepared English as Foreign Language (EFL) learners to become cultural ambassadors who introduce Taiwanese features to the world. Twenty-nine students were recruited from an "English for Tourism Purposes" course to interact with international students who acted as tourists. The student tour guides took turns introducing a topic unique to Taiwan. Data included recorded conversational interactions between the international and local students, comments on tour-guiding performances, and reflective notes. Adopting conversation and thematic analysis, the researcher analyzed the objective learning outcomes by observing how students performed in the tour-guiding tasks and examined the subjective viewpoints from the participants' reflective notes. The results revealed distinctive spoken features for communicative competence and the benefits of gaining a deeper intercultural understanding of how to communicate Taiwanese culture in English and developing various communication skills for interacting with foreigners. Pedagogical implications are discussed in terms of the design of English for Tourism teaching.

Intercultural communication plays a crucial role in second language (L2) acquisition as it always happens in the context of another, usually very different culture. The present study sheds light on the benefits of using documentary videos in teaching intercultural communication to young students and how they can affect students' development of their cultural competence. The study research sample consisted of two groups of fifth-grade primary school students, with thirty participants each. Their prescribed book of English consisted of various parts related to different countries and their local culture. Therefore, documentary videos could be considered as adequate supplementary material. Data collection method was based on ideas adapted from The Cultural Intelligence Scale (CIS) (2005). In addition, in-depth interviews were conducted to reveal students' details and subjective feelings in addition to their attitudes and opinions. The t-test was used to reveal statistically significant the differences between the two groups. Results suggested that using documentary videos in teaching culture enhances students' cultural intelligence. Moreover, they show that the students had a positive attitude towards using documentary videos in teaching culture, which can significantly stimulate their motivation. This paper can be a pilot study that will stimulate further research into the needed topic.

One important skill for 21st century people is communication. However, trait-like communication apprehension (CA) can hinder effective communication. More than that, when communicating with foreigners who come from another culture, some non-native speakers of English might also be hindered by intercultural communication apprehension (ICA). Hence, the current study investigates CA in L2 (English) and ICA among students pursuing an MA in English at a public university in Bangkok, Thailand. The research results revealed that students with higher ICA have higher CA (trait-like CA). Moreover, to be more specific, MA students in the study who have higher ICA were found to have higher CA in the dimensions of group discussions and meetings. The results provide insight into how students in the study who have different levels of ICA feel in terms of their anxiety when they communicate using English in different contexts.

The COVID-19 pandemic created unprecedented educational challenges. In order to ensure the continuity of formal education and to compensate for interruptions, emergency remote teaching practices were initiated worldwide. Like all other courses, foreign language teaching applied internet technologies as a teaching-learning media during the pandemic. Internet-based intercultural exchange between institutions of different cultural / national origin was already a widespread phenomenon before the pandemic. These intercultural activities have the potential of enhancing foreign language learning during emergency conditions such as pandemics as they provide opportunities for communication for real purposes in distance learning contexts. In order to gather in depth data, this study adopted a phenomenological design of a qualitative research model. The study explored the perceptions of Chinese and Turkish EFL learners based on their first-hand experience regarding an online intercultural exchange activity. When the qualitative data obtained from the individual interviews with volunteer participants were analyzed, it was concluded that the participants valued the activity and believed it contributed to their foreign language learning process and intercultural communicative competence. Findings were discussed in the scope of implementing mobile learning in the form of an intercultural exchange activity in online language teaching and learning process. Findings of this study could shed light on the applicability of online intercultural exchange activities for emergency remote foreign language teaching.

The main objective of this qualitative case study was to analyze the feasibility of integrating an e-tandem mode into the language curriculum for the English major at the Universidad Técnica de Cotopaxi (UTC). We selected purposeful sampling that permitted us to deliberately choose participants. So, this study was conducted by eleven pre-service teachers and two professors of the Pedagogy of National and Foreign Languages-English degree program. Semi-structured interviews were administered to professors, and focus groups were conducted with pre-service teachers. Open-ended questions were designed for both techniques. The main findings show that e-tandem mode can be implemented in the curriculum of the English major in two forms: as a component of a subject and as pre-professional practice. Once the legal basis of the Regulation of the Academic Regime of Ecuador was reviewed, we concluded that e-tandem could be included as a component of a subject, respecting the principle of autonomy and giving rewards (scores) when learners participate in sessions. It could also be a pre-professional practice activity in which learners could improve their communicative competence and language knowledge by participating in the e-tandem process as mediators or tutors. It is recommended to use pilot plans in the UTC with the use of e-tandem sessions in both modalities, which could then be evaluated to determine which one produces the best results.

In an increasingly globalised society, the internationalisation of higher education has become a prime goal for many universities, which seek to promote the development of intercultural competencies and insert their actors in dynamics of academic cooperation, knowledge construction and negotiation of meanings in an environment of respect. What is sometimes overlooked, however, is the fact that university campuses are already intercultural spaces by nature, even in the absence of internationalisation initiatives; in other words, university campuses are places where diversity abounds, making it possible to experience intercultural encounters, leading to the development of intercultural competencies. This article presents the narratives of four students and their home-making experiences at a Colombian university. Through their stories, these students give us a glimpse of the intercultural challenges they face when they try to create a sense of belonging while developing, constraining or reaffirming their identities on campus. The article analyses the student narratives through the lenses of new materialism, social semiotics, intersectionality and intercultural communication to understand the complexity of building a home with others amid diversity and, sometimes, adversity.

This study investigates the complex dynamics of semantic change and cultural adaptation of metaphor in multilingual communication. The research uses cognitive linguistics, sociolinguistics, and pragmatics to develop a model that explains the fundamental mechanisms of metaphorical expression and comprehension across languages and cultures. Using qualitative analysis of 12 semi-structured interviews with senior-level academicians with experience in industry and academia, this study examines the interplay between semantic transformation, cultural adaptation, metaphor comprehension, cognitive processes, and contextual variables. The results demonstrate that as a metaphor is transmitted and adapted across languages and cultural contexts, it undergoes a complex semantic modification process. Cultural influences significantly affect the adaptation and interpretation of metaphors, highlighting the significance of sociocultural context in the production of metaphorical expressions. In addition, cognitive processes mediate metaphor comprehension and adaptation, emphasizing the significance of cognitive mechanisms in international communication. This research contributes to the theoretical understanding of metaphor in multilingual communication by illuminating the cognitive and social mechanisms that influence metaphorical discourse. The findings have implications for language instruction, translation, and communication in environments with linguistic diversity. The comprehensive approach of this study provides valuable guidelines for metaphorical expression and comprehension in various linguistic and cultural contexts.

This research was prompted by a perceived lack of meaningful interaction between home and international students in one UK university that has a long history of internationalisation. The study sits within an interpretative paradigm, and it explores the perceptions and experiences of academics and home students. Five focus groups were held with undergraduate home students, and 19 interviews were carried out with academics, 10 interviews with home students and 2 with recent graduates. Home students report feeling that international students have a group identity from which they are excluded. This sense of exclusion and their perceptions of being marginalised in comparison to their international peers appear to lie at the heart of a lack of mixing on campus. These findings imply that academics and institutions can only bring about meaningful intercultural interaction when the different groups of students come to realise that they have shared goals and equal status, with a learning environment that embraces who they are and who they are becoming.

The International Virtual Exchange Project (IVEProject) has been connecting students across multiple countries through asynchronous forums on a large scale since 2015. However, considering the variety of virtual exchange methods and the advantages they bring to the field of foreign language learning, there is an increased need to explore the pedagogical possibilities of combining asynchronous and synchronous modalities, particularly across multiple institutions and countries. This short article reports on a pedagogical innovation which involved adding synchronous sessions conducted over Zoom to the asynchronous IVEProject forums. The authors arranged eight weekly Zoom meetings in which students from China, India, Japan, Jordan, Palestine, Türkiye and Syria participated in May-July, 2021. After the final session, a survey was administered to participating students and their teachers to explore their experiences. The results show that the majority of students appreciated and benefitted from the opportunity to communicate synchronously with peers from other countries. The paper also reflects on the benefits and challenges of combining synchronous sessions alongside the asynchronous IVEProject forums, aiming to derive lessons learned from this project in the hope that this will aid future EFL instructors in creating engaging virtual exchange projects which involve participants from multiple cultures and countries.

Objectives: Two sets of intercultural learning resources incorporating Global Englishes learning content were developed for self-access use in the higher education context. The resources were investigated in terms of student learning experiences across two contexts in Japan: an English language major program and a nonlanguage major program. The aim was to develop an understanding of student learning experiences to inform practical implications for self-access learning in these areas. Method: The educational resources were investigated in a qualitative content analysis of reflective writing and supporting survey data from 30 students across the two university programs to understand how (and if) they supported student learning as well as how the resources and form of learning were perceived by the students. Results: Resources in both universities led to similar learning outcomes, showing that self-access resources can support intercultural and Global Englishes learning. A longer time requirement was necessitated by one set of resources, which was criticised by students. Students also indicated a preference for collaborative learning aspects. Conclusions: This pedagogically focused article contributes to the discussion around digital resources for intercultural and Global Englishes learning. Short-form resources integrating these areas may be more effective for self-access learning than resources requiring multiweek commitments in both language and nonlanguage major programs. Aspects of collaborative learning in self-access engagement appealed to students. Implication for Theory and/or Practice: Carefully designed short resources based on the conceptual framework and on recommendations outlined in this article may lead to effective self-access student learning, particularly in resources involving collaborative work.

Intercultural sensitivity, which is seen as an affective component of intercultural competence, is crucial to cultivating one's favorable emotions about cultural differences experienced in intercultural communication. This qualitative study was conducted to find out how undergraduate English as a foreign language (EFL) students in Vietnam perceived intercultural sensitivity. The results showed that although the majority of students had not previously heard the phrase "intercultural sensitivity" before taking part in the survey, their intuitive understanding of the term was rather close to that of the literature. The participants were well aware of the evaluation of their intercultural sensitivity level. EFL students had different strategies for improvement of intercultural sensitivity depending on their study level and intercultural awareness. All participants, especially those who were learning a second language, believed that intercultural awareness is crucial. The study findings point to the recommendation that educators strive to further integrate intercultural sensitivity instruction and learning to improve EFL students' capacity for intercultural communication.

To prepare their students for the increasingly demanding workplace of the 21st century, business schools resort to using experiential learning techniques to make explicit connections between knowledge and experiences students already have, encouraging them to make their own interpretations. In this case study, 50 multilingual students participated in a LEGO Serious Play (LSP) intervention for one academic semester. Due to the continuous rise of the numbers of international students in management schools in the UK in the post-COVID-19 era, researchers and lecturers indicate that additional support is often deemed necessary to promote social justice for multilingual and multicultural students and support their well-being. These students used LSP to make better sense of the assessment criteria and the theories they had to use to respond to the instructions and prepare a group paper and a group oral presentation in terms of a module on intercultural management. Findings revealed that these English as a Second Language (ESL) students were inspired by the use of LSP as it allowed them to reflect on the theories and apply them in creative ways fostering collaboration and creative problem-solving. Students initially felt uneasy to engage in this new approach but then enhanced their performance in their group oral presentations by 35% as they were able to improve their second language competence and intercultural awareness. The article concludes by discussing implications for using LSP with multilingual ESL students to help them overcome linguistic and cultural barriers, offering suggestions for the effective use of game-based techniques in Higher Education.

Embedding the use of technology for authentic social interactions with L2 teaching and learning needs to be supported by effective pedagogical practices. This article explores how technology can support the learning of te reo Maori in New Zealand. Thirteen kaiako (teachers) from a variety of teaching and learning backgrounds and experiences, and five akonga (students) representing a range of ages were individually interviewed. The akonga reported that synchronous online classes were very helpful for their language development and enjoyed the whanaungatanga created by being a part of the online community. They felt less, isolated and felt that they got to know some members of the class better. The kaiako reported, that connecting with the heart enhanced engagement in te reo Maori, which increased the confidence of akonga, which advanced the level of proficiency in te reo Maori.

Global competence is supposed to possess a transformative capacity allowing for building bridges across cultural diversity to foster international cooperation. Literature searches indicate the paucity of robust tools evaluating global competence. This research strove to adapt and validate a measure for the assessment of students' global competence in Kazakhstan. For this purpose, the Global Competence Scale was chosen. A total of 467 graduate and undergraduate educational psychology students responded to the adapted scale. Based on the scores collected, the instrument was examined using exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. Good reliability was yielded (Cronbach's alpha for the factors ranging from 0.722 to 0.924) and the original nine-factor structure was replicated and accounted for 61.84 % of the total variance. The model fit indices met the criteria set a priori. The Kazakh version of the Global Competence Scale was unprecedented and proved to be a reliable and valid tool for gauging the construct. In contrast to the original study, surveyees with international experience reported no superior scores relative to non-experienced counterparts. Holistically, findings suggest the respondents should work on their global competence, in particular with regard to international academic knowledge and communication. Further validation of the scale with larger sample sizes to increase its generalizability and use is encouraged.

The goal of this study is to identify and describe the application of cross-cultural advice and counseling utilizing traditional Dayak expressions as a means of promoting character transformation and reducing school-related conflict. This is qualitative descriptive ethnography. SMA Negeri 1 Halong, Halong District, is the research site. Research topic: Employing in-depth observation to collect data on using Dayak Meratus in guidance and counseling. Principals, guidance counselors, teachers, and students were interviewed. The strategy and process of cross-cultural guiding and counseling using traditional Dayak idioms were interviewed. This study used a student questionnaire to gauge their impressions of cross-cultural counseling guidance with Dayak Meratus traditional expressions. Document review confirms and completes data. Miles, Huberman, and Saldana analyzed the data. Study shows that using Dayak in counseling helps teachers and students communicate. A harmonious connection determines the success of cross-cultural guidance and counseling in developing character. Dayak traditional expressions are often used by Dayak parents to advise their children; when used by Guidance and Counseling teachers, it's easy to grasp and quickly creates self-awareness for Dayak students to improve their behavior/develop character. For students of various ethnic groups, traditional Dayak expressions provide passion and critical power to find out the meaning in depth, so they create a mindset and viewpoint about the meanings and purposes contained in traditional Dayak phrases. The use of Dayak expressions is slowly allowing Dayak kids, who were first closed and sensitive due to misunderstandings with newbie teachers, to become open and familiar. Misconceptions can be prevented by translating verbal and nonverbal communications.

Recent research suggests that learners should be provided with opportunities to negotiate meanings with other cultures and critically evaluate and reflect on their own culture. Texts have a great potential to provide such opportunities, especially in contexts where learners do not have the chance to experience other cultures through real-time observations. This case study investigates what the readers-as-text-ethnographers approach (RaTE) offers to promote intercultural awareness (ICA) in higher education. To this end, seven texts were selected following certain criteria, and a 15-week implementation was designed. Data were collected through learners' written productions, classroom video recordings, a postimplementation survey, and key informant interviews. Findings revealed that studying texts with the RaTE approach helped the learners develop their ICA in understanding the complexity of culture, otherness, and self. Furthermore, findings also showed that the learners had difficulties in certain areas, such as reading between the lines and textual analysis during the implementation.

Virtual reality has been found of great potential to develop intercultural communicative competence and as an effective tool to incorporate intercultural learning principles into engaging lessons in second language education. In this study, Intercultural Communicative Competence Virtual Reality (IC2VR) is a module that employs VR technology to promote ICC among primary school pupils. The study aims to investigate Year 5 pupils' perceptions of the use of VR technology in developing ICC in the Mandarin as a Second Language (MSL) course. A group of 32 pupils who were enrolled in the MSL course were selected from two different national schools to participate in this study. A survey questionnaire was developed to identify the pupils' technology usage and the pupils' learning experiences of the use of VR technology throughout the ICC development effort in the MSL course. Statistical analysis was conducted to analyse the data and presented as frequencies and percentages in tables. Responses from the openended question were gathered, coded and organised into themes. General findings were that majority of the pupils were first-time VR users and they had positive perceptions towards VR technology. The study revealed that the pupils were comfortable with VR technology used in the MSL course. It also indicated that VR technology brings enjoyable lessons to pupils and increases their interest in obtaining new cultural knowledge. This study will benefit policy makers, teachers, instructional designers, and pupils in an effort to understand pupils' perception of VR technology and how it impacts the development of pupils' ICC in MSL classes.

The internationalization of higher education has become a key policy within the global higher education sector. Yet a large body of literature suggests that simply having a diverse group of students does not guarantee meaningful intercultural engagement. This paper presents a qualitative study intended to gain a richer understanding of Hong Kong's higher education environment. In-depth interview data were collected from students of different cultural backgrounds and from academic, non-academic, and managerial staff at three Hong Kong universities. The data collection period covered local political turmoil in Hong Kong as well as the COVID-19 pandemic. Results indicate that, due to language barriers and potentially opposing political ideologies, all students faced challenges engaging with others who were culturally different from themselves. These findings can facilitate the development of an adaptable cross-institutional framework for meaningful intercultural learning.

Reduced international student mobility has prompted Australian universities to reframe the way they provide intercultural and international learning experiences, with less dependence on the recruitment of international students. However, many related teaching and learning approaches are often met with perceived student resistance. The aim of this article is to provide better understanding of the challenges with university internationalization by exploring students' experiences of an internationalized university through a Person-in-Context lens. The article reports on a mixed methods study that took place at a metropolitan university in Australia and utilized a quantitative questionnaire and qualitative individual interviews, both of which explored students' expectations and experiences of their internationalized university. Main findings have been applied to Volet's person-in-context adaptation of Bronfenbrenner's ecological model of human development in order to address the research question, "What influences students' experiences of an internationalized university?" Findings highlight the considerable importance students placed on intercultural interaction. This article presents the application of findings to the person-in-context model and discusses implications that can be drawn about the student experience of internationalized universities.